Under Consideration
New features and rule changes that are under consideration. Auto-Win Item Purchased from the Manager for a Star, an Auto-Win Item would make use of the feature in matches where the server randomly picks a card for you if you don't select one. Where normally the pick would be random, with the use of an Auto-Win Item the pick would be geared towards your winning of the match. The proposed Auto-Win Item rules are... *One player must lock-in a card and the other must not. Auto-Win Items are not used if both players lock-in or both don't lock-in. *In the scenario where the Auto-Win player is locked-in, the other player will have a losing card chosen for them, failing that a tie card, failing that the Auto-Win Item isn't used. *In the scenario where the Auto-Win player is not locked-in, the Auto-Win player will have a winning card chosen for them, failing that a tie card, failing that the Auto-Win Item isn't used. *In the instance where both sides have an Auto-Win Item, both Auto-Win Items will be used to end the game in a Push. If a Push is not possible the Auto-Win Items are not used. *Auto-Win Items are not chosen to be used, they are automatically used when they are fit to be used. Auto-Wins would be a lossy (deflating the amount of stars in the server) method of playing matches without losing stars. It's use for gaining stars isn't nearly as great as maintaining an amount. And with knowledge of these rules it should be possible to dodge and counter the use of Auto-Win Items. Alert Log Server Alerts currently dissapear after a short time so a log would allow a player to parse through old alerts for useful information. Personal Notes Personal Notes are already kept for the purpose of a log on the exit page of Continuous Mode. A player's own profile could be kept in the sidebar for the purpose of reading ones own notes. The use for this might be to analyze ones own behavior or to infer information from dead players. Profile Gravedigging Keeping profiles of players who are no longer in the game available if they interacted at all with active players. The purpose of this would be to infer information on active players through their interactions with dead players. Non-Suit Match Results Currently it's possible to log match results manually in areas with Global Vision by monitoring match playing profiles and stock changes. This is not 100% complete information (for example if a match pushed with a doubles token you wouldn't know the token moved with this method as you would from using Table Suit). However this is not optimal use of the information, an optimally made client would automatically log this information to a note when it's available. To prevent this becoming a future exploit there are the following options (some of these can go together and there's more options probably that i havent thought of)... *Make match logging standard for whenever you're in a global vision+stock area as if results were being publicly announced. *Limit the ability to infer results by having the stock update on timed intervals (ex. once a minute) *Limit the ability to infer results by separating stock and global vision areas. With the 2 pieces of info in separate areas it would either be less effective than going to the table suit or require teamwork to make use of. Tournament Endgame As Rippus enters the endgame in Tournament Mode the game right now becomes alot less about gameplay and more about agreeing to a method of completion. For example if it gets down to a final 2 and one doesn't want to lose to the other player they could try to wait out the other person until they quit to get a better ranking. To fix this for tournament mode we could... *Immediately end the game at <3 players instead of <2. *Force the last 2 players in a meeting followed by the immediate end of the game. *Force the last 2 players into an endless cycle of meetings and matches (that they have to play) until the game ends. Tips in the Endgame As the game gets to be less than 5 players perfect information becomes easier to come by. Whether or not this should be considered a problem or part of the nature of the game is debatable. Although as it stands this piece of the game favors players who are willing to wait out the majority of a game so that they can have a resource advantage in the endgame. If considered a problem the following solutions could be done... *Have a setting that changes the tipsettings when the playercount is under a certain amount. This could simply turn off tips or use a second set of tip settings. *Tip release limits changed to work as percentages so that they scale with the playercount. *Tip release timelimits changed to be playercount based so they can scale (timelimit * playercount). Wild Cards Currently server settings specify exactly which cards you start with. A Wild card setting would add randomness to the starting cards by randomly picking an RPS card for each Wild card. (To prevent any sort of one-in-a-million ridiculous circumstance this would not be a true random but instead a guaranteed 33% of each card type distribution.) This could be used to make Tournament mode play more like Continuous mode, increase the usefulness of Full Info earlier in the game and generally add more complexity. Missused it could degrade the game into luck. Human Capital A system by which the labors of one player directly profits another player who has paid for the possesion of that player from the Manager Suit. The cost of making a player your Slave would be their current Stars count. The following rules apply to the Slave/Master relationship... *All Stars earned by a Slave via winning matches are transferred to the Master unless the match is with their Master. *The Master can push the Slave into matches. *Masters can send their Slaves private messages at any time at no cost. *Slaves are unable to purchase anything from the Manager. *Slaves cannot be purchased by other players. *When a Slave is on their last Star they will be given automatic and continued updates on the full info of their Master. *When a Slave exits naturally with excess cards, those cards instead of being disposed of are transferred to the Master. *When a Slave exits unnaturally (quit/lagout) the Stars of the Slave are transferred to the Master. *On exit of a Master, the Slaves are freed except.... *...if the Master exited via trading (a Save) the trading partner will acquire the Slaves. Masters themselves can also be purchased and beholden to their own Master making them "Middle-Masters". In the case of Middle-Masters the following rules also apply... *All Stars earned by a Middle-Master via Slaves are transferred to the Middle-Master's Master. *On exit of a Middle-Master, Slaves of the Middle-Master are transferred to the Master. *In the case where a Middle-Master exits via trading, the previous rule of the trading partner acquiring the slaves is ignored. Full Info Deluxe Full Info bought from the Manager Suit, feeling somewhat underpowered, could be made more potent by also including every Table and Security Note that player was involved in making Full Info not just giving instant full information on a player but also information on every player they've interacted with. IOU Stars IOUs would be a part of trading where instead of trading physical stars currently in your possesion you would instead trade the promise of Stars that will be won in matches. *PlayerA trades 2 Stars for 4 IOUs from PlayerB. *PlayerB wins 3 Stars (profit) in a match. *All 3 of those Stars go to PlayerA to square his IOUs. PlayerA has one IOU remaining. *PlayerB comes crawling back to PlayerA unsatisfied with the result ("He forced me before i could force him!"). *PlayerA graciously trades back the last IOU for nothing in return. * Under this system IOUs are essentially a single continuum between 2 players. Taken a step further we could decouple the IOUs from the players to make something more like real world debt trading (which was a major cause of the 2008 global economic crisis). *PlayerA trades 2 Stars for 4 IOUs from PlayerB. *PlayerA trades 1 of those IOUs to PlayerC for some information. *PlayerB wins 3 Stars (profit) in a match. *All 3 of those Stars go to PlayerA to square his IOUs. (This depends on how payment priority is sorted, here im doing original IOU owners first.) *PlayerB comes crawling back to PlayerA unsatisfied with the result. *PlayerA laughs and walks away.